The Screams
by genies9
Summary: Not exactly your average Bellagoescrazy fic... Bella's been locked away somewhere. Where is she? Why is she there? And how can she tell the difference between reality and nightmare? T for some violence, dark themes, and minor sexual content
1. Prologue

Prologue

Two things I knew.

Pain. There was the kind _they_ brought with them, taunting me with the light as they entered my dark little cell, before they snatch that away, too. More pain comes if I try to cry out. What does it matter anyway? There's no one to help me. No one who _can_ help me, even if they cared enough to.

Then, even worse than that, was the pain _he _brought.

He didn't mean to. I couldn't believe it was deliberate—I didn't _want_ to believe that. He never spoke, just sat in the opposite corner and watched me. Sometimes I could see him, too, when _they_ would leave the slot open on the door, letting in a fragile stream of light. I didn't know if he was real. I didn't care. He might have just been a hallucination my mind conjured up calm me through the endless night. A part of me ached for him, desperately hoping that he could wash away that other pain, if only for a little while.

The few times he touched me alone were a kind of bittersweet agony.

And then there were the screams. The only sound that broke through the unending silence besides _their_ voices. They pierced through the walls like a knife—brutal, bloody, damaging. And then they would stop, leaving only the cold, dead silence in their place.

The second thing I knew:

I was going to die. Tonight? Tomorrow? Did it matter? Was I dead already and this was only my own personal slice of hell?

I wanted to ask him that, the angelic hallucination in the corner. But the words were choked off in my throat, kept at bay by overwhelming fear—fear of more pain, fear of what his answer would be.

Fear that the sound of my voice would break the beautiful hallucination, and he would leave me here, alone, with _them_, with nothing to console me in the hours, days, weeks, until it was my turn to join the screams.

* * *

A/N: …Yeah, it's a bit short. I was trying to write my last few chapters of **The Experiment**, and this is what comes to mind. 


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Two weeks. That's it. That's all the time we got before the next set of vampires came looking for me.

No, not the Volturi. If only I'd been so lucky.

"Are you crazy?" the shorter one hissed. "Their scent's all over this place. You think they won't notice we've taken this one?"

The other one, the one whose ice cold hand was clamped over my mouth, replied calmly, "We'll just have to make this shorter than usual, then." He gazed down at me. "Why should we let this go to waste?"

I saw the first one scowl. "Shorter? What fun will that be?"

Futile though it was, I tried to squirm out from under the hand restraining me. What good would it do? Even if I got free, I wouldn't make it very far. Edward was hunting, not even due back for another twenty four hours, at least, so there would be no one to save me. A squeak escaped around the hand over my mouth.

The second vampire—because that's definitely what they were. I could even see their red eyes in the dark of my bedroom—leaned over me, pressing his lips to my ear. "Make a sound and your father's dead."

I stilled instantly, closing my eyes tightly. He seemed to find that rather amusing. The hand moved away, to be replaced by two impossibly strong arms, lifting me off my bed.

* * *

Warm hands. Not burning hot like J—I couldn't think his name. It was nearly as painful as thinking _his_ name.

It's funny what you use to identify people when you can't see them. I'd become incredibly adept at identifying my captors by their hands.

There were the warms hands of course—humans, there for reasons I couldn't fathom. They weren't prisoners, exactly. They were like prison guards in some movie—abusive, arrogant. But they met the same fate eventually, anyway, so what difference did it really make?

Two in particular were fond of tormenting me. There was Callous—I called him that for lack of anything else. His hands fit his name—calloused, knuckles raw and scraped from the pain they daily inflicted. He smelled like onions always—his breath, his clothes, even his hair smelled like it.

And Nails. He had sharp, jagged, fingernails. They cut, scraped, tormented. Whenever he'd leave me I could feel a few more raised patches of skin where his nails had scraped me.

There was on other pair. I didn't need to name him for his hands, I heard them call for him often enough to know what to call him—in my head, at least, since I could never call him anything out loud.

It was Nails this time.

"Shit," he hissed, rolling off of me. The smell was what registered in my brain. The pain… well, I hardly noticed the pain. There was the usual kind that came from these sorts of visits, and everything else seemed to pale beside that.

But I could still smell it. Nausea rolled over me. Blood.

I shut my eyes tightly as I heard the cell door open. "DOC!"

A moment later, new hands. These were gentle, smooth, as though they'd never hit anyone in their life. I heard him sigh. "You couldn't have been a little more gentle?" Doc asked incredulously.

Nails snorted derisively. "Just patch her up before they come by, and leave out the sermon." I heard the door shut as he left, though the slot on the door stayed open, allowing a little light for Doc to work by.

"Hold still," he muttered brusquely, pulling his bag around so that it rested on the bed and started poking and prodding at my side.

A soft gasp escaped me as I finally felt first jab of pain. My eyes were still shut closed.

Doc paused, and a moment later I felt his hand over my mouth. I opened my eyes to see his looking back at me. Pleading. '_Don't make me hurt you.' _If I made a sound, he wouldn't have a choice.

It was nice to know at least someone didn't want to.

And then there were the cold hands. I didn't have a way to differentiate between them. It didn't matter, anyway. They always promised a different sort of pain.

* * *

A/N: Story set-up FTW…

I need to get more in the habit of writing. I haven't been in the mood all week, but I wanted to at least write this chapter. The first part, by the way, was supposed to be something of a flashback…


End file.
